Political Psychology as a Theorizing Field in Political Science

Psychology, in its early stages of development, was a field of study which solely and exclusively dealt with the mental state at the individual level. However, with the passage of time, psychologists gradually found some common grounds of interest with social scientists in general and political scientists in particular. Now, a new field of study has emerged called political-psychology which is an important analytical tool of investigation of political behaviors both at individual and collective levels. Concepts such as voter's political behavior, racism, genocide, ethnicity, nationalism, political tension, extremism, war and its prevention have also become the subjects of interest to psychologists as well. Hence, based on the researches done by political psychologists so far, two sets of theories have emerged concerning political behavior, one deals with explaining political behavior at individual and the other one at collective levels. This study aims to investigate these theories fitness as proper analytical tools of explaining political behaviors.